Deployment:Shadow deployed ready to scout forwards, his land speeders combined with the lack of LoS blocking terrain on the bottom left forced me into deploying all my raiders in the top left corner. I kept the reavers in reserve.

Scout:Everything that could scout, surged forward. It's worth noting that the scout rule says the unit redeploys within 12", so this is not a move, they therefore don't take dangerous terrain test, but on the other hand they don't count as moving for jink.

Turn 1 (DA):The Dark Angel army powered forward clumping up on the left to get the most out of the Devastation banner and stealth from the darkshroud. The banner meant that all squads within 6" treated their bolters as salvo 2/4. This meant 4 shots per bike at 24" because they were relentless and counted as stationary! Despite the hail of bolter fire, assault cannon fire, plasma tallons shots and a plasma cannon blast, only one raider suffered a glancing hit, thanks to the cover of darkness. On The left the units that were not in range turbo boost forward to corner the Dark Eldar. A combat squad of bikes secured the relic and moved it out of the ruin.

Turn 1 (DE):The ravagers moved to the left in order to take out the two heavy flamer speeders, only glancing one to death (first blood), they did have 3+ cover saves. The Dark eldar raiders surged forward, three of them getting within rapid fire range of the ravenwing command squad, two moving into the ruins. They unleashed a horrendous hail of splinter fire shredding the command squad and Sammael (warlord VP). This earned two of the warrior squads pain tokens. The raiders fired their lances into another speeder detonating it, amazingly the resulting explosion killed a melta biker (three hits on the squad, one wound).

Turn 2 (DA):The bikes moved forward losing one of their number to a dangerous terrain test. The Topmost darkshroud wrecked the topmost raider with it's assault cannon, the warrior squad emergency disembarking behind the raider failing their pining test. The Darkshroud at the bottom fired into a ravager but failed to hurt it. The top attack biked missed a raider. The bottom attack bike managed to take out a ravager with it's multi-melta. However the resulting explosion killed a melta biker (three hits on the squad, one wound). The surviving speeder fired it's crack missiles into one of the raiders to no effect. Three squads of bikes fired into the bottom raider with a melta gun detonating. However only two warriors were killed in the explosion thanks to feel no pain. All three biker squads charged the surviving warriors, with the weakest squad (one biker) tanking overwatch and dying in the process. The bikers kill three warriors winning combat by three, however the warriors held. The topmost bikers fired into the pinned warriors killing two and the proceeded to charge them, they won combat by three, however the warriors held(Problematic as I can't shoot the bikes, when they are in combat!).

Turn 2 (DE):One squad of reaver came on, and rapid fired the bottom attack bike, killing it and earning a pain token. The remaining ravager moved forwards to engage the last landspeeder, effortlessly taking it out with it's three lances. The top raider's passengers fired into the top attack bike killing it. The other raider's passengers fired into the bikes killing one. The raiders lances fired into the same bikes killing another, leaving only the melta bike standing. The Archon, who had separated from his warriors, charged the bikes locked combat to support the other warrior squad. He killed the sergeant in a challenge, and the warriors managed to kill a bike. In return the ravenwing bikes killed a warrior losing combat. One squad of bikers fled the other used hit and run to get out of combat. Leaving the archon vulnerable to fire on his next turn. The top combat was drawn and the bikes used hit and run to get away.

Turn 3 (DA):The Bikes with the relic fired at the Archon who lost his nerve and went to ground for a 2+ cover save (should have just taken it on the shield). The bottom bike squad rapid fired the warriors failing to hurt them thanks to 4+ cover and FNP. The top biker squad fired into the top raider but didn't hit. The next melta bike fired into the same raider (which I forgot to move, so no jink save), but miraculously the penetrating hit only removed the raiders lance. The third melta bike fired into the other raider however cover prevented any damage. The darkshroud manoeuvred to the rear of the ravager and fired it's assault cannon taking out one of the ravagers weapons. The bikes charged the raiders that they had shot at. Two of them taking out one of the raiders with a krak grenade. Unfortunately the resulting explosion killed two bikes, one in the adjacent combat before he got to attack! The explosion also killed one adjacent warrior and two of the passengers (they had FNP), pinning them. A bike charged the warrior squad near the Archon, however they managed to take him down before he could strike (go spiky armour!), earning the squad their third pain token (fearless!).

Turn 3 (DE):The second reaver squad came in. The ravager fired at a darkshroud taking out its only weapon. The warriors finished off the bikes. Both reaver squads baldevaned the last bike squad with the relic killing them. With only two darkshrouds (one without a weapon) left, Shadows Revenge called the game. DE victory!

DE VPs: 2 (first blood, slay the warlord) DA VPs: 0

Overview

Well that was a brutal game. The effective lance fire at the beginning put the biggest threats out of play early (the heavy flamer landspeeders). The rapid fire splinter weaponry also ate through the bikes. Poison really punishes biker armies, it's amazing. Splinter cannons are fantastic for making overwatch more effective, and in general make warriors a lot nastier when they are out of their raiders. On another note a surprising number of bikes also died to S3 vehicle explosions (4) and dangerous terrain tests (1), overwatch was also very effective (1).

I normally take raiders for their long range AT fire, however in this game I realised the advantage of having AT vehicles and AI infantry is your infantry get the pain tokens making them more durable, as opposed to with venoms where you have AT infantry and AI vehicles and the pain tokens get wasted. Raven wing had a lot of pain tokens to give out too, as their attack bikes count as separate units, combine this with combat squad and each raven wing troop choice was worth three pain tokens!

Also always move your raiders, no matter what, it's very embarrassing when you realise they don't have jink.

As for the new Ravenwing, the darkshrouds were effective and helped make the speeders and bikes more resilient to dark light fire. The attack bikes seemed like a bit of a liability as they were their own units. The speeders were good, but unfortunately got taken out early on. The command squad seems like a lot of points to spend on three models that die as easy as normal marines (well they have FNP) to splinter fire. Sure they can take an AMAZING banner that quadruples the bolter fire of all units within 6". However it means the dark angels have to play a lot less aggressively and keep that command squad back. Hit and run and scout make the army very unique to play against and keeps you on your toes at deployment and during the game. Sammael seems pretty solid with Eternal Warrior and good equipment (AP2 sword and plasma cannon). However at the end of the day he has a 3+/4++ save meaning poison shooting and venom blades can cause him problems. Another thing I noticed is that he comes with a set warlord trait that gives him and his unit +d6 movement when they turbo boost, this seem to be rather situational and effectively wastes a chance for a better warlord role. At the end of the day though Ravenwing armies have a low model count and are reliant on their toughness, and we have tones of splinter fire.

All in all interesting game.

A big thanks to Shadows Revenge for the game, and testing out the new ravenwing for us!

Wow, nice game & report! That is a job lot of bikes. Like a Harley Davidson rally or something.

Great 1st turn for you there, getting rid of the hvy flamers & warlord seemed pretty reasonable to me & seemed to work. Earned a few pain tokens to make the warriors more survivable. Deployed the only place you could.Decided to keep the warriors on board this time? Didn't look like there was much cover to put them in, and maybe trying to avoid being assaulted?

I suppose the DA had to move in closer to make full use of all those short range weapons & assault ability. I don't know what the range of a typhoon launcher is, but I imagine they would have lost a firefight at long range? They really played into your hands though, especially with the light brigade due on turns 2 & 3.They also seemed a little unlucky, taking some unexpected casualties - one from overwatch is acceptable given poison shooting, but the explosion casualties were unexpected extras.

Can't comment on the DA list, but I like your's better this time round. Good point about venoms vs raiders, but venoms just give out so much firepower they're hard to resist.

You did bottle it a bit with the archon, but I can understand why you did it! It's just that you paid the points for the shadow field and all...

Did you miss the night shields? They can be handy vs melta weapons, but I imagine Shadows Revenge would have just made sure and moved in closer to avoid embarrasment! You still had vehicles running at the end though, which is unusual.

Warriors seemed to stand up quite well in assault once overwatch was over, those bikes a bit short on attacks or something?Reavers tidied up well, they were always going to be your method of grabbing the relic. Think the bikes that grabbed the relic should have backed away as fast as possible once they had it, but you would still have caught them with the reavers anyway.

This variety of marine doesn't seem the most difficult for DE to deal with, as I think we expected. Nice to see a good example in practice though.

_________________The Kabal of Shadows Ascendant"Cruelty has a Human Heart" - William Blake99% of war is killing time. The rest is the killing time.

Wow, nice game & report! That is a job lot of bikes. Like a Harley Davidson rally or something.

Thanks, I have to say it was one of the most confusing reports to write, there were just so many different individual bike squads in the Ravenwing army! I found it very hard to write in such a way as to distinguish them from one another. I think I'm going to add a numbering/letter system to the pictures to make it easier in future reports.

Squierboy wrote:

Great 1st turn for you there, getting rid of the hvy flamers & warlord seemed pretty reasonable to me & seemed to work. Earned a few pain tokens to make the warriors more survivable. Deployed the only place you could.

It was a fantastic first turn, my lances didn't whiff, and the splinterfire was plentiful. I effectivelly killed over a third of the ravenwing army in that one turn (500+ points).

Squierboy wrote:

Decided to keep the warriors on board this time? Didn't look like there was much cover to put them in, and maybe trying to avoid being assaulted?

I was prepared to disembark them if need be, but like you said their wasn't much cover and I needed to get as many in rapid fire range as possible, keeping them on the raider was the safest option in this case.

Squierboy wrote:

I suppose the DA had to move in closer to make full use of all those short range weapons & assault ability.

In hindsight I don't think they had to close that much, and I'm still a bit perplexed as to why shadow moved into rapid fire range of the boats, I honestly think he was assuming that at least one or two of them would have been taken out that turn, inflicting heavy casualties and limiting the return fire. To be honest at least one raider should have been taken out!

EDIT: Also plasmatalons are only 18" range, so trap you in rapid fire range.

Squierboy wrote:

I don't know what the range of a typhoon launcher is, but I imagine they would have lost a firefight at long range?

They have cyclone missile launchers which are effectively the same as regular missile launchers except with two shots (so S8 48" range), they would have had a good chance, however anything they shot and didn't destroy would have been able to shoot back. Not to mention trying to fend of 10 lances, and well reavers are hard to out-range.

Squierboy wrote:

They really played into your hands though, especially with the light brigade due on turns 2 & 3.

Shadows did play very aggressively, and I'm not too sure why. One of the reasons I can think of is that first blood is a massive advantage in the relic mission, and would make it impossible for him to lose as long as he had the relic.

Either way I'm sure he will give us his reasoning when he leaves his own comments on the game.

Squierboy wrote:

They also seemed a little unlucky, taking some unexpected casualties - one from overwatch is acceptable given poison shooting, but the explosion casualties were unexpected extras.

I believe a total of three of those explosion casualties were melta bikers, it became a running theme in the game. My splinter proximity mines were very effective.

Squierboy wrote:

Can't comment on the DA list, but I like your's better this time round. Good point about venoms vs raiders, but venoms just give out so much firepower they're hard to resist.

Honestly, I'm just not a fan of venoms, and I prefer having some long range lances.

Squierboy wrote:

You did bottle it a bit with the archon, but I can understand why you did it! It's just that you paid the points for the shadow field and all...

Yeah, I definitely should have taken the shots as it would have forced him to allocate more fire to the Archon rather than the rest of the army, and the archon would have had the 2+ cover save to fall back on. Not to mentioned a pinned Archon is useless. I'm still getting to grips with the blaster archon, but so far I like that fact that he's been surviving every game.

Squierboy wrote:

Did you miss the night shields? They can be handy vs melta weapons, but I imagine Shadows Revenge would have just made sure and moved in closer to avoid embarrasment! You still had vehicles running at the end though, which is unusual.

The main reason why I dropped the night shields was because I was planning on running the warriors on foot if the situation demanded it (the same reason I decided not to take splinter racks). This combined with the hybrid nature of the army made me feel the points were better spent elsewhere.

Squierboy wrote:

Warriors seemed to stand up quite well in assault once overwatch was over, those bikes a bit short on attacks or something?

Ravenwing are pretty terrible in assault, the have 1 attack per model, an attack for charging and an impact hit. That being said they should be able to take on warrior squads, however overwatch, difficult terrain being dangerous for bikes, and the warriors having FNP makes them rather annoying to assault. Not to mention if the warriors break they have a 58% chance of getting away, and even though they can only snapfire next turn, as long as they have their cannon they can still get some damage in.

Squierboy wrote:

Reavers tidied up well, they were always going to be your method of grabbing the relic. Think the bikes that grabbed the relic should have backed away as fast as possible once they had it, but you would still have caught them with the reavers anyway.

That's the thing, you can't really hid from reavers with their 48" move, and bladevanes from 9 reavers is on average equivalent to 27 BS4 bolter shots (no AP though). With two squads you can make anything within 48" of your board edge take the equivalent of 54 bolter shots, that's a lot of dice.

Kinnay wrote:

Great report! Geezuz, Ravenwing looks nasty! That banner is evil... Also, all bikes are fearless and have hit and run and scout? Reavers should hit and run, too.

Thanks, they seem pretty nasty, and I would love to have hit and run on reavers! It's one of my favourite special rules (as a slaanesh daemon player).

Did you miss having the Wyches at all? I guess this really wasn't their battle. It's not even like you can tarpit stuff that can hit and run after all.

Sadly no. When wyches lose their raider that's them finished for the game if they are not in your opponents half. Warriors are just far more flexible especially with the splinter cannon, as they can still contribute to the game. The ranged fire power also makes it easier to soften up targets for the reavers.

Effectively my army is split into two components. One component starts on the board and their job is to set up the playing field for the reserve component. Take out threats like heavy flamers on fast vehicles and generally soften up targets so that the reavers get those early pain tokens. Going second also gives my opponent two turns of movement before the reavers potentially come in. This gives them two movement phases to make a mistake that I can capitalise on when the reavers come in. It also gives me time to work out what they are doing, meaning I'm not playing the reavers blind.

wanderingblade wrote:

Would you change your list if you were to fight this battle again?

I like it as it is, and for this battle I don't think I would change it. The only things I'm still testing are the Archon and not having a dedicated counter assault unit.

Ok, so let me give you an insight into what was going through my mind.

Ok, as for the list. The idea of the command squad was to be a force multiplier. I was hoping to get T1 and do some major damage with mass bolter fire. The problem was that I while I got 1st, we got long table, which gave must the ability to hide from most of my bolters.

Secondly I added the attack bike thinking they were part of the squad (I used to play bluebook bikers alot actually) sadly after making the list and setting up, I re-read ravenwing combat squads, and saw that it was seperate. I would rather of bought another speeder (they are about the same points) than have 2 bikers doing nothing the entire game.

T1 I surged forward hoping that I could drop atleast one of the raiders, and let sammie tank most of the shots. T1 I didnt do any damage, and lost most of my AT to lucky darklances (although sammie squad did take a lot of shots, I hoped they would of taken more) I seriously thought I would of done more damage. Sadly the dice gods werent with me, and I knew that it was going to be a uphill battle

T2 with a third of my army gone with nothing to show for it, I had to do some major damage... Sadly things just didnt want to blow up for me. So I did the best thing I could, and hid in assault. Sadly it still didnt turn out well, with him wounding me constantly even though needing 6s...

T3... was nothing left but just keep trying to put up a fight

Basically nothing went right for me. Didnt get the right deployment to really do alot of damage. Didnt do any damage T1, kept rolling a ton of 1s and 2s. Explosion deaths (seriously... he needed 6s to wound... and my melta bikers just kept getting shrapnel in the neck...) and things just wouldnt die. And it wasnt like I was making bad mistakes (maybe other than all out rushing him... but I was going to get shot down anyway T2... might as well go all out)

As for what I would do differently. Other than drop the assault bikers for more speeders, I probably wouldnt change a thing. Im torn on the command squad. Their ability to put out damage is immense, but are they worth it in 1500 pts??? idk yet. At 2k I would definately take them though, but I would have to play the list again to make a definative descision.

Have you considered adding Black Knights to your Ravenwing army? What I've read they've got some nasty grenades. -1 T and -1I if I remember correctly. With help of those they could ignore FnP and ID our characters. Assault would be simultaneous.

I must admit the new Dark Angels look tempting Ravenwing in particular. I'll keep to Dark Eldar until I've gotten myself a satisfiable Kabal.

Great report again Mushkilla. I've read them all, but somehow this is the first or one of the I've commented on.

I totally just complimented you over on Warseer, but whatever! Another awesome batrep with great learning points. Good to see Ravenwing can still pressure you and shut you down in your own deployment zone. Last time I played against them (with their older book) it was definitely a different game, and I think that's one of that lists strengths.

How are you liking those blasters on the Reavers? It preserves range but I don't think you'd be able to out-range a bike squad with it. Just curious what drove that.

Explosion deaths (seriously... he needed 6s to wound... and my melta bikers just kept getting shrapnel in the neck...) and things just wouldnt die. And it wasnt like I was making bad mistakes (maybe other than all out rushing him... but I was going to get shot down anyway T2... might as well go all out)

I think it was one of those games where had that initial push taken out two raiders everyone would have been praising you for your brilliant strategy. But the dice didn't work out, and suddenly people are wondering why you played so aggressively? Why didn't you hang back? If you had hung back and I had still won people would have been wondering why you didn't play more aggressively?

The fact of the matter is hindsight is easy. But armchair generals don't realise that.

Devilish wrote:

Have you considered adding Black Knights to your Ravenwing army?

Personally I think they are too expensive, whilst still being only as survivable as a regular biker. Their plasma talons also force them to get into rapid fire range (only having 18" range), which is really somewhere bikes don't want to be. The grenades are interesting but again have very short range. If you do use them I would try to get them into assault as often as possible and then hit and run to wherever they are needed, this way you limit the amount of shooting they take.

Devilish wrote:

Great report again Mushkilla. I've read them all, but somehow this is the first or one of the I've commented on.

Thanks, the support is appreciated!

agosyb wrote:

Another awesome batrep with great learning points. Good to see Ravenwing can still pressure you and shut you down in your own deployment zone. Last time I played against them (with their older book) it was definitely a different game, and I think that's one of that lists strengths.

Thanks! Glad to see people getting something out of these reports. The amount of early game pressure raven wing can put on with their scout move and speed is impressive, just like the game against space wolves I was trapped in the corner. I can see their alpha strike potential being huge with each bike effectively having 48" range (12" scout, 12" move and 24" plasma/bolter) on their first turn. Hell they have a 36" rapid fire threat range. It's definitely one of the stronger points of the army.

As for me being in a corner, I really need to work on my deployment more, castling up like that isn't that sensible. Sure it limits the first turn fire, but it also traps you. I think in future I'm going to spread out more, to force my opponent to do the same. There's still a lot to learn for me.

agosyb wrote:

How are you liking those blasters on the Reavers? It preserves range but I don't think you'd be able to out-range a bike squad with it. Just curious what drove that.

The drive was the shift to playing the reavers less aggressively and using them as an adaptable support unit that wants to still be alive to deny objectives at the end of the game (rather than the ultra aggressive sledgehammer style used in my earlier games). Blasters give you that flexibility thanks to the extra range. They makes it harder for fast units like bikes to assault/rapid fire you (18"+2d6 vs 9"+2d6), and protect you from the survivors of the transports you take out. The blaster also has other advantages, instant death, ignoring FNP on T4, wounding T5-6 on 2s, and more range for snapshoting flyers.

Finally they give you a larger threat range when coming in from reserve (30"), meaning you can threaten any vehicle within 30" of your deployment zone. The downside is they are not as reliable at taking out tanks, however they are more likely to be shooting at side/rear armour than heatlances thanks to their range (especially when they come in from reserve), making them closer in effectiveness than one would think at first glance.

Three heatlances in metla range against AV12,13,1477.2% chance of stunning a vehicle or worse50.7% chance of making a vehicle explode/wreck

Three blasters against AV1075.7% chance stunning a vehicle or worse45.7% chance of making a vehicle explode/wreck

In short I felt flexibility was more valuable than raw tank killing power when adopting this new style of play.

Looks like ravenwing got a boost in the new codex. That banner sounds LETHAL. 2/4 bolter shots with salvo can ruin anyone's day.Does this bonus also apply to the command squad's plasma talons?Also, how did the darkshrouds turn out? It appears that a lot of Shadow's got taken down early. I'm assuming that was because of bad rolling no?

Looks like ravenwing got a boost in the new codex. That banner sounds LETHAL. 2/4 bolter shots with salvo can ruin anyone's day.Does this bonus also apply to the command squad's plasma talons?

No, it only works on bolters.

Shrike423 wrote:

Also, how did the darkshrouds turn out? It appears that a lot of Shadow's got taken down early. I'm assuming that was because of bad rolling no?

I really like the darkshroud, it seem to fulfil three rolls: It gives your army stealth, it helps bikes win combat (+1 to combat results within 12"), and it draws a lot of anti tank fire away from your regular landspeeders. It has a 3+ save just for moving, it's very cheap, shooting it is a bad idea, but if you don't the rest of the army will be better, it's a win win situation for the ravenwing. That being said Shadow couldn't pass a 3+ save to save his life that game, whether it was cover or armour.

1+ in combat Res. That can be huge. I suppose it can help offset ravenwing's low amount of attacks.Have to keep it close and if the bikes lose then that leaves the darkshroud open to assault, although that wasn't a factor in you game.Seems like shrouded vehicles has become a trend in sixth. Wonder if GW will do something similar with nightshields?

I used to play RW a lot and will probably be bringing them out again now the DA codex is out. They still seem to suffer from the problems they always have, low model count, limited weapon range, pretty useless in HtH, and poison negating their toughness boost.

I would love if flicker fields gave stealth or shrouded, would be awesome.

Here's the thing for me on that - Flicker fields, as they are, mean I always get my 5+ save. I know all the arguments about that save versus the Jink save, but, having seen my raiders immobilized in the early going, keeping that save regardless of my ability to maneuver helped change my warrior-loaded gunboat into a semi-stable firing position.

I would consider flicker fields towards the end of list-writing, where you sometimes have spare points. If you go second, you have to hide them from sight. Also take into account being stunned or immobilised. Worth it, but not a priority. I wouldn't ignore them just because jink is a thing now.

Here's the thing for me on that - Flicker fields, as they are, mean I always get my 5+ save. I know all the arguments about that save versus the Jink save, but, having seen my raiders immobilized in the early going, keeping that save regardless of my ability to maneuver helped change my warrior-loaded gunboat into a semi-stable firing position.

I think we might put too much faith in cover saves.

The thing is I don't think keeping warriors in raiders is the best idea any more with S4 explosions, I would rather keep the warriors in cover and have a raider near by for support and evacuation. As for immobilised raiders they tend to get ignored if they don't have warriors in them. But you are right cover saves can be ignored at times and that can be a problem if you rely on them too heavily.

Panic_Puppet wrote:

I would consider flicker fields towards the end of list-writing, where you sometimes have spare points. If you go second, you have to hide them from sight. Also take into account being stunned or immobilised. Worth it, but not a priority. I wouldn't ignore them just because jink is a thing now.

Agreed, I am considering 1-2 raiders with flicker-fields just to help deployment as I don't run any venoms, and I like going second. So they definitely still have their uses.